Saturday, 2 March 2013

Silver Linings Playbook Review

Uplifting and life changing, are two things this film is, you need to see this. I loved it that much, I am still deciding if I should put it in my top 10 films of all time, which believe me its a shocker, for me to say that, if you were to look at my top 10 films of all time, you will see just two films from 2000 onwards, they are Inception (2010) and Gladiator (2000).

Let me start off by saying Jennifer Lawrence.... wow she is an amazing actress fully deserving of the oscar she got for best Actress. She steals this movie, her passion, her ability to talk/look calm and then just flip out in a scene, just like the masterful Al Pacino does. She is such a brilliant Actress using all of the emotions known to mankind, in this movie, fully believable and watchable, Miss Lawrence you have a new fan, and its not everyday modern Actresses get me with their acting ability. There is a scene in the diner where she totally lets riot its an amazing scene from an actress just finding her feet!

Okay so this is a romantic-comedy right...... Wrong! How can it be a Rom-com if it centers on things such as... bipolar disorder, depression and OCD all very real life serious things. The cast show these real problems so amazingly well. This film surprised me so much in the way that it shows that there is always a "Silver Lining"you just have to work to attain it. Bradley Cooper shows he is more than just another pretty Hollywood Actor, in this and he acts with so much believability.

He plays a man who has bipolar disorder and is trying to get his wife back, he lives with his estranged parents, whom his father happens to be Robert De Niro who happens to have OCD (more on that later). Enter Jennifer Lawrence who has a solution to all of Bradley Coopers problems, she can get a letter to his ex wife and she teaches him dancing for a dance competition, which he has entered with her to return the favor of the letter to his wife, (hope that made sense), the dancing ends up developing a beautiful bond between our two main characters, and helps Bradley with his bipolar. So will he get back with his wife, will they win the dance competition and will Bobby De Niro get over his OCD? Watch it! This film needs to be seen.

The supporting cast are wonderful too. De Niro is brilliant in this, its the best I have seen him in years,
the scenes where we see him with his OCD are great, the way electrical
remotes are placed and numbering of envelopes, freaking out when one goes missing, its masterful. It was so great to see Chris Tucker in this film he is brilliant.... and yes he dances, I had flashbacks of the Rush Hour films haha.

Jennifer Lawrence's character has a dance studio built in her bedsit, where they can practice the dancing, before you panic this is no Dirty Dancing, this is a film about a man with bipolar trying to combat it and get his wife back! The music she has music playing in this studio in one scene, is from Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, brilliant in my book. I actually felt myself wanting Bradley Cooper to get into this dancing, combat his bipolar with it and get his wife back, get that Silver Lining. It is a masterstroke of the film. I also love the scenes where Bradley is jogging and Jennifer just comes out of no where to join him, its great seeing Bradley lose it again with her. One stand out scene of Bradley's bipolar is when he is reading a Hemingway novel, disagreeing with the ending, so launching it out of a window, running to his parents to complain about Hemingway... let me tell you it doesn't sound great I know but when you consider this is at 4 in the morning, its a genius and well acted scene.

I left this film feeling uplifted and amazed at how this film affected me so much. I know its a short review, compared to say my Skyfall or Gone with the Wind reviews, but I can tell you now this film is special, it did not get that oscar nod for best picture for nothing! Both Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence deserved their nods, the latter deserving her win, a beautiful story and film.